Evan Bateup, KPMG New Zealand's chief people and inclusion officer, says peer networks ease HR leaders' isolation and uncertainty
For Evan Bateup, chief people and inclusion officer at KPMG New Zealand, the biggest advantage HR leaders can build for themselves isn't a new piece of technology or a smarter framework – it's a phone number.
Bateup, who leads people strategy for the professional services firm's roughly 1,400 New Zealand staff, says the practice of HR leaders connecting directly with their counterparts at other organisations has become one of the most valuable – and least talked about – tools available to the profession, particularly as artificial intelligence (AI) and workforce uncertainty reshape the job.
"It's an awesome job, it really is," Bateup said of his role, which he describes as effectively head of HR with a deliberately expanded remit. "The addition of inclusion [to the title] just makes sure all the different people in KPMG know that that inclusionary voice is an active one within our exec team as part of what we do."
An awesome job, but a lonely one
Bateup argues that professional services roles carry a distinct multiplier effect: the people his team develops don't just work at KPMG, they go on to work across a large share of New Zealand's employers.
"Those people then go and work in [many other] New Zealand workplaces," he said. "If we develop talent as an HR team, those people are in there role modelling and putting into practice and helping [around] a third of New Zealand business organisations."
That scale of influence, he said, is exactly why HR leaders benefit from getting outside their own four walls. Despite the advantages of being part of a large global network, Bateup said New Zealand's small size is itself an asset.
"I can pick up the phone and talk to pretty much any CPO in New Zealand... [There aren't] that many," he said.
He also pointed to something particular about the chief people officer (CPO) role that makes external relationships more valuable than in other executive functions. "Even internally, your role might mean you've got to performance manage the exec sitting next to you," he said. "You're part of the team, but you're always a little bit apart in different scenarios."
Picking up the phone to peers
Bateup was careful to distinguish HR's collaborative culture from the more guarded dynamic in commercially sensitive roles. "One of the advantages in a CPO role versus a sales role is the nature of competition," he said. "It's a greater good, it's a lifting tide approach to what we do in the people space."
He linked that directly to New Zealand's ongoing struggle to retain skilled workers, noting that the country's core problem is scarcity rather than competition between employers. "Our biggest issue in talent in New Zealand is there's actually just not enough talent in New Zealand," he said. "As New Zealand, we need to lift it up."
The benefits of peer connection, he said, start with wellbeing. "At a real personal level, is actually mental well-being," Bateup said. "The cognitive load of our roles are significant, and you're trying to solve really important decisions, often with imperfect information. That takes a toll. Just having a safe space with a peer who's doing the same thing actually just gives me the energy I need to keep on persevering."
His comments echo wider warnings within the sector about isolation tipping into burnout among senior leaders when left unaddressed.
Beyond wellbeing, Bateup said peer conversations shortcut problem-solving. "I'm weighing up trying two or three different ways of approaching a situation," he said. "They might either go, I've tried this and it's kind of working in this regard, or I tried this and it didn't work, so I can take one of the three options off the table."
The magic is in admitting you don't know
Bateup's clearest message was about vulnerability. He said the value of a peer conversation depends on leaders being honest about their own uncertainty, rather than performing confidence.
"The best part is often just getting together with peers locally, globally, and just understanding that no one actually has a good answer," he said. "Your exec team, your CEO, your board are looking to you going, so what are we going to do? And you're like, I don't know."
That uncertainty, he said, doesn't mean HR leaders have nothing to offer – it means the value now lies in setting direction rather than promising certainty, a theme that mirrors broader coverage of how HR leaders are learning to navigate constant change rather than eliminate it.
"I think we're going to head in this direction and we are going to aim to step into these core problems first," Bateup said. "I'm not going to sit here and say exactly how we're going to get there ... but I know the first part of the road looks like this."
He said that willingness to say "I don't know" only works with the right audience. "If you go into those conversations just trying to out-ego your equivalent, you can probably feel good about yourself, but you're not going to get a lot out of it," Bateup said. "That's where you get the magic of it all."
